Data Analytics: Fuelling IoT Revolution

Is data analytics fuelling the IoT revolution or is IoT fuelling data analytics revolution is a key question that businesses must look for.

These two areas Data Analytics and IoT have a symbiotic relationship. One feeds on the other for growth and adoption. IoT connects all manner of endpoints, unraveling a treasure trove of data. The availability of this data is driving opportunity for data analytics by extracting and presenting useful information for decision makers to make informed decisions, which are more predictive in nature rather than reactive.

Therefore, IoT and data analytics feed off each other and enterprises are adopting this trend globally as they are able to drive effectiveness and efficiency in their operations and business outcomes. With networked sensors, data stores that store massive amounts of structured and unstructured data and analytics engines, the value that this can drive for enterprises is phenomenal.

The application of IoT and data analytics in a variety of industries is happening around us. But it requires a new way of thinking amongst industry leaders and businesses to connect unconnected parts of their business across endpoints and building analytics around the data that will be generated. Let's look at some applications of IoT and data analytics that is expected to sweep industries over the coming years. With the handheld devices and insights on demand, both sales and field service professionals from these firms can engage intelligently with farmer community in real time and help them grow their business. In a data poor country like India, with a focus to increase farm incomes and improving farm productivity, IoT and data analytics can be a great catalyst for driving these twin objectives.

In the automotive industry, 'community parking' is a great example where IoT and data analytics are used simultaneously to create never before business solutions. Onboard sensors in vehicles identify open spaces as they drive along and further using multiple data sources from parking sensors, real-time occupancy maps etc. All these raw data can be extracted into a cloud infrastructure to effectively build insightful dashboards & predict available parking spaces. Thereby, saving car commuters millions of wasted hours to find parking. Similarly, in the retail industry, improving supply chain efficiencies and fill rates at stores using IoT devices in stores and tracking purchase trends, predicting purchase patterns in real time to improve stock replenishment is a key application area where combining IoT and data analytics can significantly add to business margins and sales growth of retailers.

Digitally transforming every business using the combined power of data analytics and IoT is waiting to happen. Businesses that innovate and adopt this trend with new applications, software, analytics engines and tools etc. and build competitive advantage, will be the ones who will win in the marketplace in the future.